Home

	Book Reviews
	Links
	Film@11 Companion
	Latest Reviews
	Film Chat
	Directors Project
	Sid Falco
	Nocturnal Admissions
	Archive
	Site Search

Alan Rudolph

by D.K. Holm

Pseudonyms: Gerald Cormier

18 December 1943 --

Films as director and producer, unless otherwise noted:

Riot (1969; assistant director only)
Premonition(1972)
Nightmare Circus(1973) (as Gerald Cormier; aka)
Barn of the Naked Dead,(1975, USA reissue title; aka Terror Circus,1973)
The Long Goodbye(1973; second assistant director only)
California Split(1974; second assistant director only)
Nashville (1975; assistant director only)
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (writer only) (1976)
Welcome to L.A.(1977)
Remember My Name(1978)
Roadie (1980)
Endangered Species(1982)
Return Engagement(1983)
Choose Me(1984)
Trouble in Mind(1985)
Made in Heaven(1987)
The Moderns(1988)
Love at Large(1990)
Mortal Thoughts(1991)
The Player(1992; actor only, as himself);
Equinox(1992)
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle(1994)
Would You Kindly Direct Me To Hell? : The Infamous Dorothy Parker(1994; television commentator only)
Afterglow(1997)
Trixie(1999)
Breakfast of Champions(1999)

hiffs of Robert Altman's influence have weaved their way throughout Alan Rudolph's otherwise admirable career. Altman's influence is twofold, seen in the jagged, surrealistic crime drama style of Remember My Name, inspired by Altman's Images mode, and in the mush-centered, "quirky" love tales of Chose Me through Love at Large, derived from Altman's whimsical Brewster McCloud and A Perfect Couple mood.

Just as Philip Larkin needed to free himself of the fever caused by Yeats's intoxicating music, so Rudolph needed to realize his own personality. When Rudolph goes off on his own, as in Roadie, or engages with a commercial project over which he may not have complete control, such as with Endangered Species, he is a genre craftsman who brings an engaging insouciance to otherwise conventional materials. The residue of Altmanism therein causes no harm. As an analyst of contemporary relationships, Rudolph is on shakier ground, veering from the exquisite complexities of Choose Me to the muffled vision and forced frivolity of Love at Large. When Rudolph inserts into otherwise love-resistant projects, he makes them special, and in Mortal Thoughts, Rudolph explores the darker complexities of romance with an unexpectedly grim and fluid determination, though the success of that movie may be in part attributable to the tenacity of producer/star Demi Moore.

Rudolph is attracted to uncertainty, to shifting perspectives, and to life on the road, and he succeeds when he sees them clearly within the intervening prism of Altmanism, which means he can veer from the chaos of Equinox to the sweet and sour, subtle and unsubtle at the same time, contrast of callow youth with seasoned adulthood of the intriguing Afterglow.

Return to Archive Index

Return to Top

Print-Friendly Review for Output